The Day of Disaster Read online

  Kerr stared at him. ‘Seriously?’

  ‘Certainly. I hope I’m wrong, but I can’t steady myself as I’d like to. Have a look round outside anyhow, will you?’

  Loftus was worried as much by his inability to walk freely as by fears of what might be happening to Welton and the boots, and Kerr, sensing this, felt that it was necessary to ease the tall man’s mind. ‘I’ll stroll towards the spinney if the old girl’ll tell me the way.’

  The old girl was only too glad to tell it to him.

  Towards her Loftus felt a cold hostility, almost a hatred; for she had stolen Emile’s boots, which had played so important a part in what might prove an epic of endurance.

  Kerr was a long time.

  Ten minutes passed, fifteen, and twenty. He stubbed his second cigarette, stood up, and went to the door; walking was not so easy as it had been, and he knew that he had tried himself too far. Yet the knowledge that he had done so was a comforting thing; it proved that he was not entirely out of action. Moreover, Craigie had shown that he was still, in some degree, dependent on him.

  Both things consoled him.

  He opened the front door and walked stiffly down the path, but before he reached the gate he heard a call: ‘Is that you, Bill?’

  It was Kerr, from some distance off; and there was a note in Kerr’s voice which alarmed Loftus. ‘Get the old woman to have boiling water and bandages ready.’ Kerr’s voice continued eerily, ‘and find out where the nearest telephone is.’

  Loftus stood quite still for some seconds; then he turned abruptly to the cottage. His shout brought the old woman running, and he gave her orders swiftly, before joining her in the kitchen.

  ‘Where’s the nearest telephone?’ Loftus hardly recognised his own voice. He was trying to reassure himself that his earlier fears had been groundless; but he could not.

  ‘It’ll be at the farm, sir.’

  ‘How far’s that?’ Did he hear a sound at the gate, and footsteps? Or was it his imagination.

  ‘About a mile, maybe.’

  ‘Is there a bicycle here?’

  ‘Well, yes. There’s m’ daughter’s bike, but it’ll be too small for you, sir.’

  ‘Get it to the front door as soon as you can,’ said Loftus. He no longered wondered whether there was a sound at the front; he knew there was. He went forward in time to see Kerr entering the front door carrying a man over his shoulder. Blood was seeping through his battledress.

  Loftus said bleakly: ‘What else?’

  ‘God knows,’ said Kerr. ‘You were right. There was an attack on Welton. Three or four men at least, and shooting. What about that telephone?’

  ‘There’s a woman’s cycle at the front door,’ said Loftus, ‘and the ‘phone’s at the farm we passed coming here. What are you going to do?’

  ‘ ‘Phone for help,’ said Kerr.

  ‘Save time, and get to the Home Guard,’ said Loftus, taking his wallet from his pocket. He showed the card signed not only by the Home Secretary but by high officials of the Army. ‘We can use this now that the alarm’s been raised. Get ‘em busy.’

  ‘Right.’ Kerr hurried out, while Loftus bent over the wounded man. The old woman had sidled up, and was removing the battledress far more expertly than he could have done. She cut away shirt and vest and began to cleanse the wound. He thought bleakly that she had her good points; showing skill and aptitude for emergency nursing that was now to be of invaluable service to him.

  He fetched and carried for her.

  The time dragged, but a little more than half an hour later he heard the sound of approaching cars. Three passed the cottage, but one stopped outside it. Kerr came in, breathing heavily; he had cycled at more speed than he knew, and had not fully recovered, despite a five minutes’ car ride back.

  ‘Are you coming?’ he said.

  ‘Yes,’ said Loftus. They went out together and entered a car driven by a Home Guard lieutenant. By the time they reached the spinney the other cars were already there, their headlamps converging on the spot of attack. A dozen men were moving in and out of the trees.

  Kerr went on to investigate, and returned in ten minutes; two men with him were carrying Welton, on a stretcher. The old woman’s son was coming with a second pair of stretcher bearers, while there was a third man waiting to be brought along.

  Welton regained consciousness on the way to the hospital. He was not delirious but he was in great pain. Talking was an agony for him, but he forced himself to say to Loftus:

  ‘I threw them—into—the trees. Oak trees—near the road.’

  ‘Good man,’ said Loftus gently. ‘Good man, Welton.’ He turned as easily as he could, and spoke to Kerr. ‘There’s still a chance,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to wait until morning, but we can have the place under guard all the time. If the boots have lodged in the trees, or scrub, we’ll find ‘em.’

  ‘Ye—es,’ Kerr said slowly. ‘What are we doing—staying here overnight?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Loftus. ‘We’ll ring Lois and tell her what’s happening, and arrange for an ambulance to fetch Emile. And I’ll give Craigie a ring. There isn’t much doubt that this little affair is worth all the attention he can give it.’

  Loftus fell silent, until the end of the journey. He used the telephone in the matron’s office, sending word to Bob Kerr’s Lois, and a message to Christine; Christine had yet to convince Loftus that she was in love with him.

  He talked to Lois, rang off, and put the London call through. Then, while he was waiting, the door opened to admit Nurse Caroll.

  Kerr stood up; Loftus sat near the telephone and looked at her, quite expressionless. He was reminding himself that she had known of the importance of the boots: Nurse Caroll and the matron, but none others to his knowledge.

  5

  Back from Adventure

  The nurse closed the door quietly. It occurred to Loftus for no reason at all that he had not yet seen her smile.

  ‘Good evening,’ she said. ‘May I have a word with you, Mr. Loftus?’

  ‘Of course.’

  She nodded her thanks, her manner precise and impersonal. ‘Emile came round not long ago. He’s very anxious to make sure that you found the letter.’

  ‘Ye—es, I suppose he would be,’ said Loftus. He felt Kerr’s eyes on him, and wondered whether Kerr had any idea of what was passing through his mind. He was thinking that it was strange that Nurse Caroll should have learned of his arrival at the hospital so soon, and that she should voice curiosity about the letter. Under Emile’s name, it could very easily be her own.

  ‘Will you see him?’ the nurse went on.

  ‘I can’t immediately,’ Loftus said, ‘I’m waiting for a call from London.’

  ‘Can I take word to him?’ asked the nurse.

  Loftus hesitated. He wished that he did not need so long to make up his mind; before his crash he would have been much quicker off the mark.

  ‘Well, yes,’ he said at last. ‘Will you tell him that we found the boots, and that the letter is on the way to London.’

  ‘Thank you,’ said Nurse Caroll.

  There was nothing at all to indicate whether she was pleased or sorry. She turned away immediately, closing the door as quietly as she had done when she had first entered. Kerr took out his cigarette case, proffered it, and said, after a moment’s pause.

  ‘Now what’s on your mind?’

  ‘Did I make it as obvious as that?’

  Kerr laughed. ‘One learns to read the unwritten word, old boy. Was it really necessary to lie to her; and to Emile?’

  ‘To Emile, anyhow,’ said Loftus. ‘Bob, what do you know of the Carolls?’

  Kerr had been expecting the question; he spoke at once, giving Loftus the impression that he had prepared his answer beforehand. Loftus grew aware of the fact that he did not know Kerr really well, that he was apt to look on the ex-flier much as he would on the many agents of the Department who had worked with him for many years past. That was wrong. There had be
en a time when Kerr had been in Loftus’s shoes, and virtually controlled operation. There was that extra something in his mind, just as there was in Loftus’s, which enabled him to immerse himself in intelligence work, lifting him far above the average agent.

  ‘Not a great deal,’ Kerr said, ‘except that her brother, Rex, was at Eton and Balliol about my time. He was older than this girl by seven or eight years, I should say. He married Anne Brandon, and I knew Anne fairly well. You’re not asking yourself whether the nurse was the source of the leakage, are you?’

  Loftus smiled with a certain relief.

  ‘So you’ve got there too?’ he said. ‘Yes, I am asking that. Who else could there be, the matron apart?’

  ‘Someone could have been listening-in.’

  ‘Ye—es.’

  ‘Or Emile could have talked in delirium to another nurse.’

  ‘Ye—es,’ repeated Loftus. ‘It’s possible, Bob, but I’m worried. Things aren’t running as they should do. I wish we knew the whole story of Emile.’ He ran a hand through his hair. ‘But that’s not the most important issue at the moment. I’m going to have some nasty minutes until we find those boots.’

  ‘And if we don’t?’ asked Kerr.

  ‘I’m not going to like it,’ said Loftus, ‘by heck, I’m not. But we needn’t start jumping our fences too soon. I——ah, that’ll be Craigie.’

  He reached forward across the desk for the telephone as the bell rang, lifting the receiver eagerly to his ear. Kerr leaned back in his chair, smoking in silence.

  At the other end of the wire, in a large office in Whitehall, Gordon Craigie heard Loftus’s voice and looked towards an armchair at the far end of the room. The man sitting in it had his back to Craigie; the top of his head, showing above the chair, was covered with crisp, wavy brown hair. A spiral of smoke curled upwards from an invisible pipe.

  Craigie, whom very few people beyond Department Z agents knew except as a civil servant who did some obscure work, spoke quietly.

  ‘Yes, Bill, what’s happening?’

  ‘One way and the other I don’t know,’ said Loftus clearly, ‘but getting down to the root of the matter it’s not so good, old man. All ready?’

  ‘Yes.’ Craigie drew a pad towards him. ‘Go ahead.’

  He made notes in a shorthand which he had perfected himself, writing swiftly as Loftus talked. He knew that Loftus would give him only the essential details, but they increased with every second, as the lines round Craigie’s mouth deepened. His grey eyes were half-closed as he wrote, and his thinning grey hair flopped forward over his forehead.

  Loftus finished with: ‘So I’m waiting here to see what the local people have to report. They may know who got the news from the hospital—as far as I can gather the dead man isn’t a Home Guard, and had no particular business at the spinney. I think——’ he paused, then added quickly: ‘Hang on a minute.’ Craigie waited, hearing a confused mutter of voices at the other end, and then Loftus spoke into the mouthpiece again, his voice a trifle more brusque. ‘Still there, Gordon? ... good, the dead man’s been identified. He’s a Dr. Brice, a man with a small country practice somewhere near here, who does a little work at the hospital. I’m trying to find whether he was here this afternoon. Meanwhile will you see what you can find about the Caroll girl?’

  ‘Leave it to me. Is that the lot?’

  ‘Good lord, how much more do you want?’

  Craigie smiled.

  ‘As much as you can get! Just a minute, Bill. How are you feeling in yourself?’

  ‘We—ell,’ said Loftus slowly, ‘giving a bit, and taking a bit, you might say I’m all right, and you can mark me up for duty forthwith.’

  ‘Good. Where are you staying at Weymouth?’

  ‘I haven’t thought of that yet,’ said Loftus. ‘Supposing I leave a message at the police station? If you want to get in touch with me you can ask ‘em for the number.’

  ‘That’ll do. Sleep well.’

  Craigie replaced the receiver, smiling a little. For the moment anxiety about the message in Emile’s boot was less important than the knowledge that Loftus was well enough to be at work again, and that his activities would not be hampered as much as Craigie had feared. He had come to depend a great deal on Loftus.

  But he knew that Loftus would have to be replaced as the active leading agent; and he looked reflectively at Bruce Hammond, from whose pipe smoke was rising so imperturbably, wondering if he, himself, were right in nominating him to be Loftus’s successor.

  Craigie, a man who habitually dressed in grey and cultivated a non-spectacular appearance, sank down, now, on the opposite side of the glowing fire.

  On his left was a cupboard, the door of which was ajar owing to the fact that the contents were too crowded and untidy to enable it to close completely.

  One end of the long room, that about the fireplace, might have been the apartment of a bachelor in any flat in London; the other was barely, even austerely furnished as an office.

  Craigie looked at his companion, noting a lassitude that amounted almost to exhaustion.

  He had seen him often enough before, although for several years the other had been in Germany or in parts of occupied Europe on Department Z work. Full, wide lips curved amusedly as Hammond regarded Craigie in return. ‘Will I be all right for the job, sir?’

  Craigie smiled.

  ‘I’m trying to make sure,’ he said. ‘Do you feel able to cope with anything that comes along?’

  ‘A tall order, but about the right height. Pity a month’s sleep can’t precede it. But I’ll settle for one night’s rest. What’s the trouble?’

  ‘I don’t know, yet,’ said Craigie. ‘It’s rather at the iceberg stage, four-fifths under cover. You knew that Loftus had been hurt?’

  ‘He lost a leg, yes. Bad show.’

  ‘I’d rather like you to take over what jobs he can’t do for himself.’

  ‘Oh!’ Hammond’s eyes held an eager expression that faded almost at once, as if he did not believe that the decision would really go in his favour. ‘We—ell,’ he said. ‘I’ve been used to free-lancing on the continent so much that I mightn’t be all that successful as a member of a team.’

  ‘You’d be free-lancing here too,’ said Craigie dryly. ‘Loftus has been doing so for three years. The only difference is that you can be in constant contact with the office, instead of quite on your own. But if you’d rather stick to the old job, and get back to France at the end of the week, say the word.’

  ‘Freddie can take over from me there,’ Hammond said hastily.

  Craigie chuckled.

  ‘All right, Bruce, you’ll do. Now——’

  He plunged into the story of Loftus’s search for Emile’s boots, his meerschaum going cold in the telling. Bruce Hammond’s pipe, however, continued to emit little spirals of smoke, while his expression settled down to one of contemplative and almost dreamy interest.

  No Englishman working abroad for Department Z could fail to experience a full mede of excitement, of danger, of anxiety and disappointment. Hammond’s life had been the more precarious because he had been Craigie’s report-centre in France since the war had begun. He had the advantage of being able to speak French not only fluently, but like a native, and even during the days of the German occupation and after, he had continued to live in Paris, an apparent dilettante who dabbled in art and writing and who when the Germans had really started their comb-out of ‘undesirables’ had behaved in so exemplary a fashion as to have been safe from suspicion for the greater part of eighteen months.

  Then they had discovered his true work.

  Craigie knew that the full story of Hammond’s journey across France, Spain and Portugal would never be told; Hammond had never talked much about himself, or those things which happened in the course of his work. He accepted his orders and obtained a surprising number of satisfactory results, but his reports never went beyond a bare statement of those results, and any discoveries he had made while getting t
hem.

  Craigie finished, and automatically reached for a tin of tobacco on a table by his side. ‘What do you make of this, Bruce?’

  ‘I should say it was fairly obvious,’ said Hammond, stifling a yawn. The lids of his eyes were heavy with sleep, although that did not affect the alertness of his manner. A peculiar alertness showing even through his fatigue. ‘Langham passed on written information to Emile. The Huns discovered it, but lost sight of the boy. Knowing that he’d probably try to deliver it to the English authorities, they alerted their contacts on this side of the Channel. They’re pretty thorough, you know. Didn’t you say that he’d been machine-gunned by a Messerschmitt?’

  ‘A boat-load of fugitives was gunned the day before he was seen coming ashore,’ said Craigie, ‘and there were bullet marks in his clothes.’

  ‘Call that two and two,’ said Hammond, ‘and there’s your four.’

  ‘Quick going,’ said Craigie.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. A relentless working away at detail is practically automatic with them. If there’s anything that’s significant, it’s the fact that they used four or five men in their attempt. The thought of those boots decorating an oak tree has its humours,’ he added, and stifled another yawn. ‘Will it be all right if I get down there tomorrow?’

  Craigie nodded as he pressed a button beneath the mantelshelf. A sliding door opened, and the light from the office glinted along a stone passage and down a narrow flight of steps.

  ‘Thanks,’ Hammond said quietly. ‘I’ll put all I can into it. I might——’ he hesitated, ‘I might be able to get an idea or two about what Langham was doing. I know what he was working on three months ago. So long.’ He raised a hand, turned and walked down the stairs.

  Craigie closed the door, then stood looking into the fire for several minutes. He believed that Hammond had kept something back; he knew of no other agent who so deliberately refused to report partial information until he had gathered in and tied up the whole. Hammond had been right in saying that he might find it difficult to work in England after he had been his own master abroad.